USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 78
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The town, now no longer on the frontiers, was again threatened with danger near the end of King George's War. A company of thirty-two men, under Captain Thomas Tarbell, sconted in this vicinity for six days in July, 1748, but they do not appear to have discovered the enemy. A few days afterward another company of thirty-six men marched on a similar expedition, but with no better success. The captain in his return says, "We found our Selves both prevision and amanision both Times." In the rolls of these two companies are found many names that have been prominent in the annals of the town from its very beginning. Among them are the Prescotts, the Ameses, the Bancrofts, the Shepleys, the Parkers, a son of Par- son Bradstreet, and a grandson of Parson Hobart.
Almost immediately after the French and Indian 1 This honor is also claimed for Seth Wyman of Woburn. - ED. |
War, the odious Stamp Act was passed, which did much to hasten public opinion toward the Revolu- tion. The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Boston Port Bill excited a deep feeling throughout the colonies for the capital of New England, and she received the hearty sympathy of the whole country. The sentiments of the people of Groton found practical expression in a gift of forty bushels of grain for distribution by the over- seers of the poor of the town of Boston, and a letter full of counsel and encouragement.
The rights of the colonies were the uppermost subject in the minds of most people; Groton sym- pathized warmly with this feeling, and prepared to do her part in the struggle. A considerable num- ber of her inhabitants had received their military schooling in the French War, as their fathers before them had received theirs in the Indian War. Such persons did not now enter upon camp life as inex- perienced or undisciplined soldiers. The town had men willing to serve and able to command; and, justly proud of her hero son who commanded the American forces on Bunker Hill, arrangements have been completed for the erection of a monu- ment to mark the site of the house in which Colonel William Prescott was born.1 Before the beginning of actual hostilities two companies of minute-men had been organized in this place, and a large majority of the town had engaged to hold themselves, agreeably to the plan of the Provincial Council, in prompt readiness to act in the service of their country. During several days before the battle of Lexington a hostile incursion by the English soldiers stationed in Boston was expected by the patriots. Its aim was the destruction of stores collected for the use of the provincial cause ; and, on this account, every movement of the Brit- ish troops was closely watched. At this time the Committees of Safety and of Supplies voted that some of the stores should be kept at Groton, but open hostilities began so soon afterward that no time was given to make the removal of the stores. It was ordered by these committees, April 17, that the four six-pounders be transported from Concord to Groton, and put under the care of Colonel Pres- cott. On the next day it was voted that all the ammunition should be deposited in nine different towns of the province, of which Groton was one, and that one half of the musket-cartridges be re- moved from Stow to Groton. It was also voted
1 The question of command is a disputed oue. See pp. 139 and 148. - ED.
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that two medicine chests should be kept at differ- ent places in the town, and that 1,100 tents be deposited in equal quantities in Groton and six other towns,
On the morning of the 19th of April the alarm of the approach of the British towards Concord and Lexington was given at Groton at an early hour, and her two companies of minute-men, true to their naine, were soon assembled, with officers complete, ready to march and to fight for the eause to which they had deliberately pledged their support. The two companies, numbering in all one hundred and one men, under the command of Captains Henry Farwell and Asa Lawrence, hurried forward to Lexington, but arrived too late to take part in the confliets of that memorable day. They reported, however, at headquarters, at Cambridge, in readi- ness for future operations.
Mr. W. W. Wheildon, in a communication to a Boston paper, dated April 15, 1877, states that Nathan Corey and eight others of the Groton com- pany of minute-men marched from Groton to Con- eord on the night of the 18th, after a meeting of the company called that afternoon had been held, and took part with the men of Concord and the men of Aeton in the fight at the old North Bridge, and joined in the pursuit of the retreating British. Mr. Wheildon bases his statement upon the testi- mony of Colonel Artemas Wright of Ayer, a grandson of Mr. Nathan Corey, who says that his grandfather told him the story, and he had often spoken with him of the scenes and events of that day.
Even the women of Groton took up arms for the defence of their country. " After the departure of Colonel Prescott's company of minute-men, Mrs. Job Shattuck of Groton, Mrs. David Wright of Pepperell, and other women residing in the neigh- borhood assembled at the bridge over the Nashua River, between the two towns, elothed in their husbands' apparel, and armed with muskets, piteh- forks, and such weapons as they could find. Ilav- ing elected Mrs. Wright their commander, they determined that no foe to freedom should pass the bridge. Soon Colonel Whiting of Hollis, a noted tory, bearing despatches from Canada to the Brit- ish, appeared on horseback. He was arrested, and the treasonable correspondence found seereted in his boots. They detained him a prisoner and sent him to Oliver Preseott of Groton, while his despatches were forwarded to the Committee of Safety."
In the summer of 1777 the council of state recommended to the board of war that the maga- zine in this town should be enlarged sufficiently to hold five hundred barrels of powder. This recom- mendation was carried out within a few days ; and a corporal and four privates were detailed to guard it. A caution was given "that no person be in- listed into said Guard that is not known to be attached to the American Cause." Later in the autumn the detail was increased to a sergeant and nine privates.
It is said in the note-book of the Rev. Dr. Jeremy Belknap of Boston, that a negro belonging to this town shot Major Pitcairn through the head, while he was rallying the dispersed British troops, at the battle of Bunker Hill.
The record of this town during the Revolution was a highly honorable one. Her soldiers achieved distinction in the field, and many of them in after life filled positions of trust and responsibility. The total number of men furnished was five hundred and thirty-seven, and the amount paid them as bounties was £2,804 15s. in hard money.
During a part of the first half of the present century Groton had one characteristic feature that it no longer possesses, It was a radiating centre for different lines of stage-coaches, until this mode of travel was superseded by the swifter one of the railway. The old coaches were drawn usually by four horses, and when the roads were bad by six. lIere a change of coaches, horses, and drivers was inade. In the year 1802 the Groton stage was advertised to set off from I. and S. Wheelock's, No. 37 Marlborough (now a part of Washington) Street, Boston, every Wednesday at 4 o'clock, A. M., arriving at Groton at 3 o'clock, P. M .; and to leave Groton every Monday at 4 o'clock, A. M., arriving in Boston at 6 o'clock, P. M. It seems from this that it took three hours longer to make the trip down to Boston than up to Groton. In 1807 there was a tri-weekly line, and in 1820 a daily line, which connected with others extending into New Hampshire and Vermont.
Patriotie and loyal as the people of Groton had been during the Revolution, an unfortunate reac- tion followed after its elose and previous to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Ignorant of even the first principles of political economy and of finance, while earnest patriots all over the coun- try were striving to devise a form of general gov- ernment for all the colonies, the majority of the legal voters and tax-payers of the town took part
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in resisting the due administration of government, and upon their petition a town-meeting was called by the selectmen to consider a set of most revo- lutionary articles. Under the leadership of " Job Shattuck of Groton, who had been a soldier in the French War, and a commissioned officer in the Revolutionary War, and who was otherwise quali- fied to be conspicuous in such a cause," these de- luded people became active insurgents and rebels against the government they had helped to organ- ize, and took a prominent part in the famous " Shays' Rebellion." The prompt action of the authorities in calling out the militia of the county, and in ordering and securing the arrest of Shat- tuck, together with two other leaders of the insur- gents, Oliver Parker and Benjamin Page, put an end to the insurrection in Middlesex. " No less than seventy names of persons belonging to Groton are found, who soon after went before a magistrate, delivered up their arms, took the oath of allegiance, and became peaceable subjects of government."
Groton was situated on one of the main thor- oughfares leading from Boston to the northern country, comprising an important part of New Hampshire and Vermont, and extending into Can- ada. It was traversed by a great number of wagons, drawn by four or six horses, carrying to the city the various products of the country, such as grain, pork, butter, cheese, eggs, venison, and hides ; and returning with goods found in the city, such as molasses, sugar, New England rum, coffee, . tea, nails, iron, clothis, and the innumerable arti- cles found in the country stores, to be distributed among the towns above here. In some seasons it' was no uncommon sight to see in one day thirty such wagons.
The original grant of land for the township or plantation of Groton, as stated, was eight miles square, comprising sixty-four square miles, or 40,960 acres. By the incorporation of other towns wholly or in part from this territory, Groton has been reduced to less than a moiety of its origi- nal extent.
The first encroachment was made by the incor- poration, in 1714, of Nashobah, named the next year Littleton ; as an equivalent for the land thus taken, - about 4,100 acres, -a grant of 10,800 acres of land in the gore between Townsend and Dunstable was secured to the proprietors of Groton by the efforts of their representative, Benjamiu Prescott, Esq., who received one thirteenth part of this accession " in consideration of the charge and
expense " he had " been at in petitioning for and recovering the grant."
In February, 1741, by the final determination of the line between Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire, a large portion of Groton Gore and a trial- gular piece of what was originally Groton were included in the latter state. Thirty years later, in June, 1771, the General Court granted to the proprietors 7,800 acres of unappropriated lands lying in the westerly part of the province, about one half of which was laid out by a committee, and the plan accepted by the court; but the plan of the other half " was not accepted, but ordered to lie till the line between this province and New York was settled, the land lying near the said line."
" Upon the incorporation of Harvard, taken principally from Lancaster and Stow," says Butler, " Groton gave up a considerable territory to that new town, comprising the ' Old Mill ' portion. A portion on the east line of Groton was about the same time annexed to Westford, originally a part of Chelmsford."
The petition of Benjamin Swallow, William Spaulding, Isaac Williams, and others, asking that lands lying on the westerly side of Nashua River, in the northwest corner of the township of Groton, be constituted a distinct and separate precinct, was granted June 26, 1742.
About five years later the southwest corner west of the Lancaster (Nashua) River, and south of the Squannacook, was made into a distinct precinct. This precinct was incorporated as the district of Shirley, January 5, 1753, and the former north- west precinct was incorporated as the district of Pepperell, April 12, of the same year. By a gen- eral act of the legislature passed in 1786, all dis- tricts incorporated previous to 1777 were made towns, and thus Pepperell and Shirley became towns. By acts of February 25, 1793, and Febru- ary 15, 1820, slices were cut from the northern portion and annexed to Dunstable. February 6, 1798, a portion of the southwest corner east of the Nashua River was annexed to Shirley, and Febru- ary 3, 1803, about four acres west of the Nashua River, near Fitch's Bridge, were taken from Pep- perell and annexed to Groton. May 18, 1857, an additional slice from the northern part of the town was set off and annexed to the town of Pepperell. Finally, the corner of Shirley lying east of the Nashua River, and all of Groton lying south of a straight line running easterly from the mouth of . James Brook, on the Nashua River, to a point in
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
the Littleton line near Spectacle Pond, was incor- porated as the town of Ayer, February 15, 1871.
The earliest mention of a meeting-house is found in a vote passed June 23, 1662, " That the meet- inge honse shall be sett upon the right hand of the path by a small whit Oak, marked at the sou- west side with two notches & a blaze "; a familiar
landmark donbtless to the settlers and their chil- dren, but long since lost to the recollection of their descendants. The house was not built, however, till four years later. Meanwhile, as appears from a vote passed in 1663, "the house & lands that was devoted by the Towne for the minestry " were given to Mr. Willard upon the condition that " they may meete in the house on the lords day & upon other occasions of the 'Towne on metings."
Several votes respecting work upon the meeting- house, its completion, and " setling seates for the women as well as for men," were passed in 1666. The footing of "a true account of all the pticuler soms of all the work done to the meeting house frame and other charges as nailes hookes & hinges glasse and pulpit et," is given in the records of the same year as £50 16s 10d.
Ten years later this humble temple consecrated to the worship of God in the wilderness, sanctified to its builders by many an act of self-denial, and hallowed and sacred as their house of prayer, was consumed by the torch of their savage enemies.
The " whit Oak " of the fathers with its "two notches & a blaze " long ago disappeared, but their children of to-day, desirous of transmitting to pos- terity the knowledge of, and a reverence for, the faith and virtucs of their ancestors, have caused to be erected near the site of this earliest church a monument bearing this inscription, --
NEAR THIS SPOT
STOOD THE FIRST MEETING HOUSE OF GROTON BUILT IN 1666 AND BURNT BY THE INDIANS 13 MARCH 1676
The second meeting-house was built in 1680- 81, on the northeast corner of the Old Common, a few rods northerly from the Chaplin School- house. After thirty-five years' nse as a place of worship, it was converted into a school-house. It was voted in March, 1714, to build a third house, which was enlarged in 1730, and a bell obtained in 1731. This house stood until 1755, when it was taken down and the fourth (subsequently mod- ified into the present church of the First Parish) was built.
In July, 1795, the steeple and belfry were dam- aged by lightning. The present front originally faced the north, and the color of the building at the beginning of this century was straw, trimmed with white. The pulpit was upon the east side; behind it an oval window and a damask curtain. The square box pews were of a wood color, and the seats were hung upon hinges.
In 1839-40 it was turned half round and the interior remodelled. A pipe organ, the gift of Mr. William Lawrence of Boston, was put in position in the summer of 1845.
Previous to November, 1826, there had been but one church society in Groton. July 10, 1825, Rev. Dr. Daniel Chaplin, then eighty-two years of age, who had been for forty-seven years the sixth pastor in the town, fainted in his pulpit near the close of his afternoon sermon, and never filled it afterwards. In November, 1825, the church voted to call Rev. John Todd as colleague pastor with Dr. Chaplin, but the majority of the town refused to endorse this action. In January, 1826, Dr. Chaplin, with a majority of the church and a minority of the town, seceded, and, in November of the same year, organized the " Union Church " of thirty members, who built a house of worship which was dedicated January 3, 1827, and Rev. John Todd was ordained their pastor on the same day.
November 7, 1831, a Baptist society was organ- ized, and December 5, 1832, a church of eleven male and eighteen female members was duly recog- nized, with Rev. Amasa Sanderson as pastor. This society built in 1841 a small meeting-house where Rev. Mr. Hobart's dwelling-house stood, which was a garrisoned house in 1691.
The first provision for a school in the town was made in the year 1681, when the selectmen were instructed " to take care that there be a school, or college, of learning of children the English tongue to read," but there is no further mention of school matters in the records for twenty-two years until April 21, 1703, when the people in town-meeting " did choose Eleazer Parker . to discourse Jolin Applin of Watertown, to see if he will come up to. Groton to keep school, to teach children and youth to read and write; and to know his terms, and bring his terms to the selectmen, who are em- powered by the town to agree with said man for one year, 1703."1 Whether an engagement was effected is not recorded, and fourteen years elapsed
1 As quoted by Mr. Butler.
BOSTON PUBT LIBRA
LAWRENCE ACADEMY. GROTON, MASS.
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GROTON.
before school matters are again mentioned. Janu- ary 25, 1716- 17, a vote was passed to convert the old meeting-house into a school-house. Four- teen or fifteen months later the town was indicted for not having had a school kept according to law. In their petition to the court of general sessions to be discharged from presentment the selectmen represent that there are not one hundred families in the town, and state that the town had been provided with a school-master to teach children to read and write according to law. In July, 1734, the town, pleading their poverty and inability to support the grammar school required by law, petitioned the General Court for a gift of lands for the support of such a school. In 1741, five places in the town, and the next year seven places, were designated where the school should be kept, six weeks in each place. From this date schools re- ceived a good share of attention, though in 1748 and 1779 the town was again indicted for not pro- viding a lawful school. The earliest divisions of territory into school districts were called angles or squadrons, and the term district did not come into use until about 1790.
In April, 1792, a number of the people of Gro- ton, feeling the need of a higher education for their children than was afforded by the grammar school, organized an association for the establish- ment of an academy and the erection of a building. They chose trustees and other officers, and sixty- five shares of five pounds (currency) each were at once subscribed for ; the town voted to take forty additional shares, and instructed the town treasurer to give his note for £ 200, on which the interest was to be paid annually, while the principal was never to be called for.
The " Trustees of Groton Academy " were in- corporated September 25, 1793, the "raising " of the academy building took place, and it was completed the following year. Previons to their incorporation and legal organization the association engaged Samuel Holyoke, a graduate of Harvard College, class of 1789, afterwards a teacher of music, to commence a school in one of the dis- trict school-houses. He taught from May 17 to October 3, 1793, for the sum of £26 2s. 8d.
The board of fifteen trustees of the academy or- ganized under the act of incorporation October 17, 1793, and Mr. Henry Moor of Londonderry, N. H., a graduate of Dartmouth College, 1793, was engaged as the first preceptor after the academy was incor- porated ; he tanght from December 30, 1793, to
February 13, 1796, for $745.83, giving such satisfaction that the Board of Trustees passed a vote of thanks to him " for his faithful and assidu- ous discharge of the duties of his station." Mr. Timothy Williams, from Yale College, was his successor ; but under his management the school struggled for existence, and at their meeting in April, 1797, the trustees voted " to discontinue the school during the next quarter." The story is told of him that on one occasion "he tied a handkerchief around two of his pupils and hang- ing them over an open door went out of the house, leaving them to call aid as they best could." It is hardly to be wondered at that, with such an original disciplinarian at its head, the academy lacked support.
Among those who have been principals of the academy, who afterwards became men of note, may be named Mr. Asahel Stearns, a graduate of Har- vard in 1797, representative to congress from 1815 to 1817, and Professor of Law in Harvard Uni- versity from 1817 to 1829, receiving the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1825 ; Mr. William Merchant Richardson, representative in congress from 1811 to 1814, in 1816 made chief justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire, and honored by Dart- mouth College with the degree of LL.D .; Mr. Caleb Butler, the historian of Groton, whose two terms of service covered nearly twelve years, and under whose care " the school flourished and sent forth many whose names give a proud distinction to the academy and its teacher ; " Mr. Elizur Wright, the distinguished anti-slavery writer and editor, and Insurance Commissioner of the State ; and the late Rev. Charles Hammond, principal of Mouson Academy, and a prominent educator. The present principal is Eliel S. Ball, A. M., a graduate of Dartmouth College.
In the outset the only resources of the school were the tuition of pupils at one shilling a week, and the interest on the forty shares held by the town. It was no uncommon thing for the precep- tor to receive in payment for his services the note of the treasurer of the trustees, which often remained unpaid during one or more years. The first assis- tance came to the institution in the gift from the General Court in 1797 of 11,520 acres of land, or one-half of a township in Maine, which was sold at fifty cents per acre. The tuition was raised in 1795 to twenty cents a week, and in 1710 to twenty-five cents.
By prudent management of their small funds the
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
trustees were enabled to report that there were in 1825 87,422 in the treasury. The same year the widow of Mr. James Brazer, made a will giving the trustees $500 upon the death of her brother, Mr. Samson Woods, and the same sum on the death of each of her four sisters, and also making them residuary legatees of one-half of her estate. Mr. Brazer was one of the largest subscribers for the original stock, and one of the trustees for many years, whose residence and grounds adjoined the property of the institution, and were purchased and presented to the trustees in 1846 by Mr. Amos Lawrence.
In August, 1838, the trustees passed a vote of thanks " to Amos Lawrence, Esq., of Boston, for his liberal donation of books and philosophical apparatus to Groton Academy," and a year later they renewed " the expression of their thanks " to him " for the repeated instances of his munifi- cence " to the academy.
Forty-four years before, in the first year of its incorporated existence, two lads had enrolled them- selves as pupils in the academy, who little dreamed that a half century later the institution would be firmly established by their own munificence, and would bear their own name, - a name widely honored as the representative of integrity, probity, and liberality. Deacon Samuel Lawrence, their father, was one of the original subscribers to the stock, and labored zealously for the success of the institution as a trustee for thirty-three years till the year of his death. The zeal of the " honored father, who labored with his hands, and gave from his scanty means, in the begin- ning," descended to his sons, and yet with all their munificent liberality they felt that they were giving less in proportion than their self-sacrificing sire.
The donations of Amos Lawrence were too nu- merous for specification in detail. " Besides the repairs of buildings, the gift of apparatus and books, the deed of the Brazer estate, the estab- lishment of four scholarships at Bowdoin College, and the same number at Williams College for stu- dents from this Academy, it was my custom," says Rev. Mr. Means, in his jubilee address, "at his request, to report to him the case of indigent stu- dents, whose wants he promptly supplied ; and whenever I wished urgently for money to pay some teacher, he uniformly supplied it. A rough esti- mate which I made of his benefactions to this Academy shows that he expended from $22,000
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